


The Inescapable Us

by levitatethis



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-27
Updated: 2010-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something to be said for the inevitable, as messed up as it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inescapable Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladywilde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywilde/gifts).



Eidetic memory.

Toby doesn’t need to see the bruised and bloody skin to remember. He doesn’t need to close his eyes and conjure forth a memory to recall any of it. It…he… _Chris_ is always there, an inescapable presence prowling along the surface of his skin, pushing the rather elastic boundaries of personal space, always trying to burrow inside. This is the way it’s been since the beginning, since boy-meets-boy flipped everything Toby thought he knew on its head.

Would the real Tobias Beecher please step forward?

Problem is he has and it’s not pretty…or simple. There’s no happily ever after in the forecast and the fates seemed set on a different default path.

Chris speaks with a wicked tongue, but it’s not so straightforward. He sacrificed himself for forgiveness and also withheld it with cold indifference. He is seductive and intelligent, sly. He has thrust Toby to the point of no return, held the cracked mirror up to his face and forced Toby to see the frightening similarities that shouldn’t be there but can’t be denied. And part of Toby hates him for it, despises Chris for never letting him forget.

After all, Holly and Harry, Angus, his mother deserve more than a man who bit off the tip of a man’s dick and shit on another man’s face. They need more than a man who gleefully sliced up a jackass correction officer to death and stabbed another man in the back. They didn’t ask for an addict for a father, brother or son, who fucked anything with a pulse ten ways to Sunday in a bid of self-pity and self-inflicted punishment; who would do just about anything for five minutes of—bliss? Happiness? Muted apathy?

He’s had time to think about it. Lots of time. Five years free of rock bottom, the first couple of which he spent getting Chris off of death row, only to have Chris, in some disturbed parlay of love, try to get him tossed back into the slammer—

 _“What the hell were you thinking?”_

 _“I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it—,”_

 _“I will always fucking be here. Maybe not in here, but…Chris, this is my family you’re fucking with.”_

 _“And me? Who am I, huh, Toby? You’ll forget me…I couldn’t lose you.”  
_  
Distance allowed for a more objective reflection, the inverse of, ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees,’ is seeing the big picture in crimson red, purple and blue. It’s unforgiving. A fact made indisputable with Chris’ pardon the year before.

Despite assertions to the contrary, white lied promises to Sister Pete he had every intention of keeping at the time; staying away from Chris, writing him off as a footnote to the past, was only easy theoretically speaking. Common sense said their estrangement precipitated any potential yet unexpected reunion on the outside for good reason—to prepare them, warn them that being apart (as much as any desperate longing ached through flesh and bone, winking at painful consequences) was the only sustainable method of survival.

In Oz they were a monstrosity of love; like some mythical creature roused from the depths of Hell. Between life and death, they ricocheted from one extreme to the next; yet still found the calming breath of comfort somewhere in the middle. In time for the next round. It’s always been love (with a twist of hate from self-loathing) by way of, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ for them—with a body count.

How is love wrong? The question seems innocuous enough, but there are ways that fester in darkened corners and smirk over tense shoulders. In Oz there was a _them_ and everyone knew it. They were virtually untouchable, a powder keg threatening to explode, a passion so limitless it consumed everything and everyone like a black hole. Beware those who got too close.

On the outside, however…

It turned out neither could stay away, despite bitter heartache each justified the other had selfishly caused. The notion of both being free—truly free—snapped them together like an elastic band pulled too taut only two weeks after Chris set foot beyond the prison’s walls. In the course of a week they held the world at bay, ensconcing themselves in a virtually impenetrable forcefield. They fucked with abandom, grabbing and touching each other in a way that screamed of never letting go, kissed breathless and whispered a litany of confessions (both angry and wanting) mouth-to-mouth and hot breath against flushed skin and scraped flesh, drawn red and raw.

They made love slow and deep and time ceased to exist. Then it was silent rediscovery of the lines that detailed the other’s body, trailing light fingertips across rough and smooth skin, gentle kisses along previously mapped out pleasure points; bodies curved together, rising and falling with matching breaths, arms holding tight, possessively.

Toby could pretend.

Until reality knocked on the door and kicked it open. It demanded answers Toby willingly put off ruminating on and the questioning quirk of Chris’ brow emanating like a sneer in the face of Toby’s own doubt only hit the point home.

 _You think you can have this and your family too?_

 _You really see Chris being all domesticated, going on picnics with your kids?_

 _You think all that hard work you put into rebuilding a career at the law firm won’t be forgotten the minute Chris pulls one of his, ‘fuck ‘em all,’ moves at an office party?_

 _Then who’ll look after your kids? Who will they turn to? Love? Want to laugh over comics at breakfast with? Show off proudly to their teachers at school?_

 _Can you afford to be a screw up one more time in your mother’s eyes? How many times does Angus need to pick up the pieces and keep the family together—like he’s doing now, babysitting your kids so you can fuck your ex-con lover?_

 _Since when does Chris share?_

 _Since when do you get the best of both worlds?_

Toby should have seen the fight coming a mile away. It was inevitable. In the end it was a cacophony of loud voices and serrated sentiments that couldn’t be taken back (but who was anyone kidding—they’d rarely ever apologized, relying instead on present day actions and assertions to do the job) until the very sight of each other, the sound of each other, was too much.

In his head, Toby hears the door slamming behind him when he left Chris, refusing to look back on his way to the car, back to his other life, the one he’d fought so desperately to hold onto. He knows how to play dad, son and brother. He knows how to be honourable and respectable. He loves to make his kids smile, Angus chuckle, Victoria proud. He can make chit-chat with the law firm’s partners, smile pretty at Holly’s teacher, live a life as a man turning over a new leaf.

Still, Chris is an ever-present fact. He’s a, ‘what if?” that stops Toby mid action, getting a drink from the fridge. He’s a bodily yearning which infiltrates Toby’s dreams. He’s an emotional need, an intellectual challenge Toby’s never before or since.

There are myriad of reasons they should never happen (again) outside of the protective and insular walls of the prison they were born within. Ration and common sense insist upon it. The pros and cons on paper are not even close.

Toby knows better.

But he fell anyway.

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
Chris only makes it partway through the song.

 _“…Here in town you can tell he’s been down for awhile,  
But my God it’s so beautiful when the boy smiles,  
Wanna hold him, maybe I’ll just sing about it…”  
_  
Then he’s pulling the auto repair van over and turning off the radio. A stab of melancholy panic pushes heavily on his shoulders and presses in on his brain until he has to take deep, calming breaths and rests his head on his hands, his elbows propped upon the steering wheel. He doesn’t dare close his eyes and risk seeing Toby looking back at him with hopeful eyes, accusing eyes.

It’s been months since he last saw Toby, touched him; it might as well have been yesterday morning. The unquenched want within him hasn’t abated and the frustrated anger at the subsequent turn of events still burns bright. Receiving the pardon was supposed to be his second chance at finally having a life that might be more worth living without having to look over his shoulder. Except that’s exactly what he hasn’t stopped doing. The difference is where it used to mean life and death, now it’s about lost and screwed up chances slowly disappearing in the rearview mirror.

It turns out, ‘making ends meet,’ had a far more appealing allure prior to his stint in Oz. Now it feels like going through the motions, empty and easy. Pathetic. He can’t even count on random, anonymous hookups to lose himself in. He works his charms with certain people at the bar, maybe manages to stick his tongue down some very willing fuck’s throat, but he can’t bring himself to go further. Sure he can feel the rush of sexual energy pooling through his body, but getting closer to the threshold conjures up images of who he’s _not_ with (the same man who could be blowing half the state if past history is any indication) and Chris goes into lockdown, stopping shy of inflicting irrevocable damage and booking a return trip to prison.

When he’s working on a car or shooting the shit with the guys, he can pretend to forget. But a hint of blue eyes over the hood of a car, the flash of blonde hair on a passerby, a trace of over-educated speech from a customer, and the cause is lost. How the hell a figment has almost as much power over him as the real deal is beyond him.

People are a relatively pliable commodity. Each represent a certain worth depending on the purpose they serve for the person carefully moving them this way and that. Over the years, Chris honed lifesaving skills. Vern Schillinger’s death was the feather in his cap. Retribution came full circle; that fuck’s demise still makes Chris grin. He’s manipulated in the name of love and war, but it was love that caused the most damage, the kind that scarred.

Every one of his marriages involved some wheeling and dealing—to get laid, feel cared for, share a bed with, have someone to laugh with—but it didn’t mean he didn’t care for any of them. He did. That’s what made them as great as they were for the limited time they lasted. Although Kitty and Angelique got his engine going through plenty of no holds barred sex and a genuine zeal for the make up variety, it was Bonnie who really made him _try_ to be a better person, at least for awhile. She was all heart—more than deserved—and all the more breakable because of it. To this day she’s one of two people he would risk his life for.

Chris sighs and slouches in the driver’s seat, tilting his head back and letting his gaze drift, unfocused, to the top of the windshield.

Toby doesn’t smile a whole lot, never did. When one graces his face it’s quantified, a result of something important, not just because. When that smile appears, however, it takes Chris’ breath away, aches a want in his chest so great the words escape him and a silent promise is made to do whatever it takes to make Toby smile like that again and again. Toby’s smile is enigmatic and lights up Chris’ fucking world, it has no place alongside tears and regrets.

Maybe Toby didn’t think it was fair to smile given his vices and incarceration. Maybe that’s part of what drew Chris to him in the first place. A sad, bruised soul desperate enough to do anything for a soothing touch. Nothing like the reek of need _off_ of someone to spin Chris’ game playing mind. But afterwards, when mistakes and misconceptions had nearly toppled them both, there was something more.

Chris doesn’t know anyone who has carried as heavy an emotional load as Toby. Half of it is shit he’s brought upon himself. Part of Chris suspects Toby is a closet masochist—perfect for a sadist like him. God knows they’ve flipped those roles more than once. One turn deserves another.

They’ve never had much chance to settle. It’s not in the cards. Momentary calm always turns into the next battle. If it’s not Toby’s inner demons or Chris’ all-or-nothing persona then it’s a barrage of external forces that would do best to mind their own goddamn business. Everyone has an opinion and half of his relationship has been (was) trying to beat down the doubting devils, the kind Chris sided with in the past—Lardner, Oz—to buy himself another day of being left alone, Toby gives far too much credence to them. No matter the circumstances, Chris has always been outgunned. And when that point is reached, the gloves come off.

Sometimes he’s just sick of quietly holding his tongue and playing nice. Other times he sees it as his mission to impart words of wisdom with a lesson designed around, ‘any means necessary.’ That’s when he’s ready to break shit—a heart, a bone, the illusion of strength. The thing is, he manages to get torn up in the process.

Toby’s the albatross around his neck, squeezing to the point of suffocation. Chris pushes against him to prove he can do without, that he can create and destroy with the snap of his fingers. As odd as it sounds, Chris likes seeing the flare of resistance in Toby’s eyes. He gets off on Toby’s trademark pout and strained voice arming an opposing viewpoint. He revels in Toby’s all almighty unwavering stance and the way he puts his full self into physically striking Chris down and sparring with him mentally. Toby throws all of himself at Chris and it’s a runaway freight train of every hurt and disappointment bottled into his lean body. Chris takes it full on then tosses it back just as hard—for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction—and doesn’t stop until there’s blood in the water.

There’s a constant challenge at their core that inspires Chris and exhausts him. It asks for all of him all of the time. And he can’t refuse.

In those brief lapses of quiet, the types of moments that normally made Chris antsy and uncomfortable, Chris is forced to admit he felt protected, appreciated all the good and bad which ran patchwork through his veins. With unconscionable weakness accidentally on display, Toby loved him anyway, for all of it. In return, Chris, for the first time, couldn’t get enough.

With Toby there’s never been a time when Chris grew sick or tired of him. He’s never felt bored or unfulfilled. Truth be told, in the midnight hours, Chris has dreamt of ‘consuming’ Toby, body and soul, in one deep breath. He has awakened to the taste of Toby on his tongue, and his hand wrapped around his rock hard cock, a vivid apparition of Toby working wonders on his body and thrumming his mind.

Toby is the keeper of Chris’ secrets. In his own way he could break Chris with what he knows. There’s something freeing about giving that responsibility to someone else. It also makes Chris uneasy. To have knowingly handed over pieces of himself was a test he passed and a mistake he must be punished for. Chris has conflated love with possession, freedom with an eternity of imprisonment, desires with demands. Having had a taste of it, Chris is damned if he’ll go cold turkey.

Staying away from Toby only makes Chris want him more. Seeing himself in Toby’s eyes makes him feel like his existence hasn’t been for naught, as if divine intervention put them on the long road to each other and Chris will take another drawn out fight—split skin, muttered taunts, bruising touches—because at least it means feeling something real, tangible, with Toby. If he can’t make forever out of them fucking into oblivion or steadily rocking against each other, their faces buried against each others necks, then he refuses the alternative.

If there’s no chance for them—just them—sharing their days and nights, going off to different jobs but always ending up at home together, naturally swimming in each other’s space with ease, honest confessions skipping off their lips in some semblance of domesticated bliss in which the rest of the world serves only as a backdrop, then Chris will take the next best that that raises a heat off his skin and twitches the corner of his mouth upwards.

In moments like these, Chris hates how much Toby means to him. No good—at least nothing long term—can come of it. Only brief spurts of happiness and tumultuous uncertainty lie in their wake.

But there comes a point when Chris can’t help himself.

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
Toby falls into a routine.

Breakfast with the kids (which he makes), then he sends them off to school (Holly walking Harry, something that’s become _their_ time) before heading to work. At the office he immerses himself in cases and research. Though he misses the rush of being at the forefront, battling on a client’s behalf, given the turns of his life he accepts some bit of contentment in still getting to stretch his law legs in the way left to him. Lunch used to be a sandwich from home or falafel from the street vendor outside his building. Inconspicuously observing the world go by was a treat.

For awhile, when thoughts of Chris made him simultaneously space out in person while urgently wanting more, he took to spending the lunch hour in his office—over thinking, quietly anxious, nervous but hopeful the man would suddenly turn up.

Working late means Angus or their mother pick up Harry. Since Oz they’ve all made the effort to be as involved in every aspect of the kids lives as possible—some may call it overcompensating for Genevieve. Others might say it’s their collective guilt manifesting. Either way the kids have a stronger bond now with the adults in their lives than would have been possible before.

Dinner is a family affair with Victoria there most nights and Angus at least a couple of times a week. Bed time is as favourite for Toby. He plays games with Harry to get him into his pjs and his teeth brushed. Holly rolls her eyes, sometimes annoyed at his overbearing side with the younger child (as affectionate as it is). Toby tries to give her room, but it can prove too much listening to her “other life” on the phone with friends, her own piece of space untouched by him and his bullshit.

He tucks Harry in and tells him stories, some from books, others made up. When Harry is dozing in la-la-land, Toby settles in for some television. On occasion the pretext is waiting for Holly to get home. He never knows which nights she’ll want to open up and share what’s going on with her. He wants to pry but doesn’t want to push. Some nights they watch tv together in silence and smile at the peace surrounding them. Some nights the tv becomes background noise to their discussions and he’s overwhelmed by the way she reminds him of himself, but stronger.

He sleeps in an empty bed and finds it takes _forever_ to drift off. It’s not insomnia, but a flurry of thoughts and ember glowing feelings that keep his eyes open. He stares at the circling ceiling fan, tries to focus on one panel to hypnotize himself, but it only makes him sick. Loneliness sets in with a clawed grip. The rare date here or there with a friend of a friend or someone at the firm does little to fill the void. He doesn’t make a leap in logic that it’s because the dates are all with women. They’re nice enough and the same would surely apply to any men (if anyone thought to set that up…which they haven’t…yet). No, that’s not the issue.

Each night he gazes into the hazy darkness of his bedroom. He kicks the blanket down into a rumpled heap at his feet. His boxer’s bunch up around his thighs and he rests his right hand on his stomach, pressed against the navy blue t-shirt which clings to his body, his left arm remains propped beneath his head.

The problem is, fantasies are just that. Figments of his imagination.

Toby’s not a delusional sap who thinks the notion of soulmates is all sunshine and roses. He’s more practical than that. There’s no place for saccharine overdoses that ignore the point by tying it up with a pretty bow. Chris has seen the darkness within. He has been privy to the horror deep inside Toby and the revelatory wonder on the flipside. He has been Toby’s victim and co-conspirator, ally and adversary, lover and destroyer. They’ve been to Hell and back, and to Hell again; Heaven on their minds, but not in their pockets.

He yearns for the stifling weight of Chris’ body draped over his, two separate forms reconfigured and re-imagined as one, caring, strong, brutal; perfect. He misses Chris’ lips, moist and searching, pressed against his skin. He longs for the firm hold of Chris’ grip, challenging and punishing, around his arms. What he wouldn’t give for a seething glare and the sparkle of amusement awash in blue; the intense observation that always made him feel on display and coveted; to hear curt words in the afternoon, softly spoken sentiments in the evening and the smooth rumble of genuine curiosity and debatable points. Toby misses being able to be himself in all its beautiful and ugly glory, to lose himself in a life without exhausting pretense.

An educated guess tells him Chris’ feelings aren’t so different, but Chris has always been better at maintaining distance with a cold edge. It’s the irony of a man who runs hot and invasive. Part of Toby plays wishful thinking on the nights he comes home later than usual that Chris will be laying in wait.

Routine should breed apathy.

In Toby it breeds longing.

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
If Chris could figure out what it is precisely that binds him to Toby, he’s not sure if he’d seek a permanent cure to exorcise such a weakness or simply resign himself to it. Toby drives him crazy—enough to want to throw his arms in the air in exasperation or drive out his frustrations with a well placed punch or pull the man close, into a bear hug, and ever let go. He can never go long or far without Toby, try (half-assed as attempts have been) as he might.

Initially Toby took over his every waking thought and nighttime subconscious. It had nothing to do with physical proximity; Toby was in his bones. Being together wed bliss and turmoil. All Chris could do was feel everything, and not just touch (fingers trailing up his leg, around his waist, hot, sweet breath against his neck), but the kind of love you would die for and kill in the name of.

Being apart again—this time it’s different because there are no prison walls encapsulating the fallout, the simmering blowback. All the tension is slightly diffused rather than coiled tight. Still, the intensity of the invisible rope that connects them is ripe to snap and send them careening (towards each other, face first). Chris tries to stay away. _Tries_.

For a week now he’s staked out Toby at work over the lunch hour. He remains unnoticed, but daydreams can take on a life of their own. He’s thought about waiting in the lobby at the end of the day for Toby to come down, then dragging him back into the elevator and fucking him senseless against the mirrored walls.

He’s considered (only once seriously so, the other times in passing) trying to walk the straight and narrow, proving himself to be a decent enough parental figure to Toby’s kids. And though he’s never met a challenge he backed down from, this one holds lives on the line and he doesn’t want to play Russian Roulette with them. He might be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s not a cunt. With that said, he would do anything to protect Toby’s kids because, in the end, when the facades of class and privilege are stripped away, when morality is given the day off, Harry and Holly are part of Toby. That makes them untouchable.

So Chris lets his head run moves built on a litany of possibilities. And the magnetic pull grows more powerful.

He can be affectionate towards Toby’s kids from afar, at an arm’s length, and is willing to do so, wants to. He can be polite to Toby’s family (if they gave him a chance) though he has no desire to go out of his way to do so. If it means having Toby, everyday, from now until forever, he’ll do it. Relying on memories of Toby’s questioning voice, the way he articulates his thoughts, conveys sentiments that range from the criminal within to captivating a courtroom, only works so long. Chris misses the awe he feels when Toby looks at him with full blown want and the way he could systematically undo Toby’s resolve and defenses.

Ideally he wants to tell the whole world to fuck off and leave Toby and him to their own devices. Ideally he wants Toby all to himself, the two of them like an island; only a carefully selected few invited. Unfortunately the world doesn’t roll that way.

It’s the most testing relationship Chris has ever been in and he can’t make heads or tails of it. The consequences can be unforgiving. But nothing ventured…

The switch is flipped. Denial is stringing him along. Chris needs completion, he needs to feel whole again and there’s only one person who does that for him. No substitutions, no placebo. He wonders if Toby has thought about tracking him down, calling the bluff they’re both playing. He wants Toby to knock on the door of his apartment and waltz in like their fight was yesterday’s news; possibly with the appearance of a wounded dog, a look that’s always pooled want in Chris’ groin the same way take-no-prisoners Beecher does.

The thing with breaking points is there isn’t much of an ultimatum. There tends to be only one possible answer.

Chris has built his life on them.

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
“I can’t keep doing this.”

“Sure you can.”

“No—Jesus, you’re not listening!”

“Oh, I’m hearing you loud and clear. You’re the one it’s not getting through to.”

“It’s too…it’s not just about us. There are too many other people who risk getting hurt.”

“Christ! When are you going to realize you can’t live for everyone else?”

“Except you, right? Because that’s what you’re demanding, _not asking_ , demanding…”

“…”

“…”

“You don’t get it? You’re all that I have, Toby. You’re all that I want.”

“That’s the point. I can’t be enough; I don’t want to be enough for _anyone_. I have to be something different for everyone else, not just you, and I need you to let me do that.”

“And I need you to wrap your head around the fact that I’m here in your life and I ain’t going anywhere. No matter what the rest of them might try to put in that head of yours. No matter what you convince yourself it’s supposed to be. You’re never getting rid of me.”

“Is that a romantic declaration or a threat?”

“Anything you want it to be.”

“…you know I love you— _Chris_? So much it hurts…it fucking hurts—,”

“So good.”

“Heh—somehow you’re the only person who could make the disturbed sound so enticing.”

“ _I love you, Toby_. Don’t ever think I don’t. It’s not possible.”

“Even after everything—,”

“Because of it, in spite of it. There’s one constant you’ve known as long as I have. _This_ , right here.”

“…it’s only a matter of time until we’re pissing each other off again, trying to kill each other.”

“Okay.”

“…okay?...Okay.”

“We try to do a lot of things to each other. No one gets it but us. Fighting is useless. But the make up sex is worth it.”

“Is that so?”

“Absolutely. Now come here and gimme a kiss.”

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
The saying goes, ‘if you love something, set it free.’ The flipside is to hold on for dear life. The justification is (supposed to be) the same, but each is a dyslexic version of the other.

Toby is the center of Chris’ orbit. He is the fixed point that gives life and threatens it at the same time. Chris rattles around him spinning dizzying circles, yet follows an otherwise set path. He’s the illusion of delusion. Balance is crucial but difficult to sustain; it’s the extremes that mark the chapters and serenade their tale.

Chris knows this and still keeps spinning. Not out of resignation, but fated understanding.

Toby, ever the pragmatic idealist, fudges the lines he thinks he can shift this way and that all to alter the pendulum’s movement. He _knows_ it’s out of his hand. His persistence is infuriating and strangely endearing.

Anyone else and Chris would cut his losses and not look back. In his own way Toby dares Chris to take what he dishes out and not leave. Not for keeps, at least. Chris meets each thrown gauntlet with a steady hand and unwavering eyes—and tosses forth a few conditions of his own, ones that raise Toby’s fury and passion, two sides of the same flickering flame promising to burn out while bringing lightness to the dark.

“When will you be back?” Toby doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t want to take the chance he’ll see amusement in Chris’ eyes at the question rather than a hint of regret at their impending separation. Instead Toby keeps his eyes on the coffee mug he’s washing as sunshine skips a pattern through the kitchen window and across his hands.

“A week. Maybe two,” is Chris’ reply. There’s a pause, the kind filled with millions of silent words collapsing into each other until they’re no more than gibberish.

Toby’s learned to stop asking where Chris goes when he does take off on jobs here and there, beyond the regular one he works in the auto garage. He murmurs under his breath as he goes about rinsing the mug, listening for the sound of Chris’ inevitable retreat. This time is better than before when things were left on a far more hurtful note, but it doesn’t make it less difficult to handle.

When Chris speaks again, it’s quieter, more deliberate, and it catches Toby off guard. “Don’t forget me.”

Toby looks over his shoulder in time to catch the fleeting look of uncertainty flash across Chris’ features. A strong wave of déjà vu rushes over him. They’ve had this conversation before, a lifetime ago. The context has changed, but the players remain the same.

“Never,” replies Toby and though the word is spoken instinctively, it’s also the only one that feels right, fits on the ridge of his tongue and the edge of his teeth.

Chris regards him closely, head tilted to the side, brow furrowed slightly into a faint indentation. The ghost of an irritated yet amused smile flickers by. Believing Toby doesn’t sway the _need_ Chris swallows to set it in stone. Goodbyes, even if they’re no more than, ‘so long for now,’ are a troublesome crossroad they have yet to fully master. Too many unpredictable factors have marred the past and left the present in a state of flux. Deep inside, in places Chris doesn’t like to talk about, he’s still that stupid kid, mouth moving faster than his brain, building up a persona for survival faster than anyone can say ‘Abracadabra!’ Any love worth its salt meant lashing out first, before it could bite back or burying it far down. The rules are different with Toby and Chris nearly berates himself for sounding even remotely needy.

Toby must hear the hitched vulnerability Chris usually does a better job hiding (shoved away, bound and gagged under the floorboards) because he turns around (mug left in the sink) and leans back against the counter, hands gripping the edge on either side. “As if I ever could.” A twitch of his own smile (trying to placate? Chris isn’t sure) lifting up the corners of otherwise pressed lips.

It doesn’t escape Chris’ notice that Toby’s serious eyes betray the lighthearted gesture. “You’ve tried,” he points out and finds he’s not angry at the fact spoken aloud, though deep down inside he should be. A year ago it would be enough to kick start one of their massive blowouts. But not now.

For a split second Toby considers apologizing, as if the act of wanting a life beyond Chris is a betrayal, but he’s mindful he’d do the same again. It’s in his nature. Just as it’s in Chris’ to turn a single existence into a manifesto. They bleed into each other.

“You knew I would.” Toby refuses to look away, instead forces Chris to see him.

Surprising to neither of them, Chris slowly moves forward, expressionless, and presses into Toby’s space, pinning him to the counter, his own hands fitted on top of Toby’s.

Chris brings his lips close to Toby’s, never breaking their gaze. “When are you going to learn?”

He drags his left hand up Toby’s right one and gently squeezes the sensitive skin, bruised from the previous night’s activities. Chris grins at the undisguised flinch in Toby’s otherwise stoic stand.

“When are you?” Toby counters, snatching his arm free of Chris’ grasp and running his hand along Chris’ shoulder until he can cup the side of his neck.

Chris leans into the touch then stands up straight. Angling his head back reveals the long line of his neck as he stares at Toby with a sharp gaze. It’s all innocent enough, but Chris knows he could push this relatively easygoing conversation in a drastically different direction. He’s sure part of Toby expects it. Like all their conversations there’s always something more lurking beneath the surface and it could go any way—at battle to the death or a reaffirmation of being alive.

Chris pushes forward, groin-to-groin, chest-to-chest, and wraps Toby up in half a hug, enough to turn his face towards Toby’s neck. Eyes closed, he burns at the sensation of Toby’s hand journeying up his neck to card fingers through his hair.

He places a kiss just below Toby’s ear and whispers, “We’re gluttons for punishment—doomed to repeat the same mistakes.”

Toby sighs, pulling back to look at Chris, who in turn is momentarily distracted when Toby licks his bottom lip.

“What a tragic pair of assholes,” Chris whispers against Toby’s lips before claiming them with a bruising kiss. He feels Toby twitch against him, the invitation too enticing—but he has to go and fucking Toby now will only make it all the more difficult to walk out the door. Of course that doesn’t stop Chris from pressing his own hard on back with a sharp thrust forward. Toby moans, his mouth falling open, and Chris swallows his tongue, punctuating the deep, drawn out kiss with a steady rhythm of rocking against each other. He hisses when Toby’s hands claw into his skin.

“Ch—c,” Toby manages to stammer while stealing a gasp of air. “Chris—wait—,”

“Don’t wanna,” Chris mumbles as he goes to work on Toby’s neck, ignoring the resistance in Toby’s body.

“No,” Toby says more haltingly. When Chris looks—glares?—up at him, Toby takes a deep breath and fixes him in an unblinking gaze. “Either stay or go.”

It’s not an ultimatum, but a reality check. Toby’s own resolve is in defensive mode. He knows Chris has one foot out the door and would rather let him go, holding onto more distant memories of the night before (and the last two weeks in general) than the rush of an earnest fuck that leaves them in a weird state of disconnect and limbo.

Chris considers the truth of the sentiment then pulls him into another kiss. Toby gives himself over to it, if only for a moment. He lets Chris wrap around his body until there’s no other plane of existence but the one they’re on. Chris’ lips, taste, fingers sparking electric against his skin and he feels completely free.

Chris throws caution to the wind. Toby can be a boy scout.

Managing to get a hand on Chris’ chest and push him away (never losing the contact of their groins, pressed together, ready to take over if he could just switch his brain off), Toby wraps his fingers in Chris’ shirt. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.”

At the same time, he twists Chris’ shirt in his hands, effectively holding him closer and making obvious his own conflicting hypocrisy on the matter. But more than his own feelings, he has to think about his kids (who are spending part of their summer break with Angus and his family up at the lake house) and what they need.

Chris draws his lips into a tight line, annoyed at the reasoning despite the truth at its—their—core. Fitting one hand over Toby’s he squeezes lightly then untangles his shirt from the tight grip. The inch of extra space provided between them causes Toby to drop his gaze and hang his head. Chris clasps the side of Toby’s face, prompting him to look up again.

“There are differences,” Chris says softly, cryptically. A half beat later, he adds, “I’ll be back.”

Toby wants to believe him, needs to. He’s fairly certain that Chris will do everything in his power to return, but there’s another life Chris lives _out there_ that offers no promises. The chances of Chris not coming back…or doing so with a price that unintentionally brings Holly and Harry into the fray worries Toby. It’s an old fight on familiar territory. But there’s a chance they can restack the odds in their favour.

All Toby can bring himself to do is nod and turn back to the sink. Gripping the edge of the counter, he closes his eyes and lowers his head. He feels a light kiss pressed to the back of his neck and his chest tightens…then there is emptiness and space, and it rushes across him like a wildfire. When he looks over his shoulder, Chris is gone. Only when Toby hears the front door close does he remember to breathe.

Immediately he begins a mental countdown to next time.

  
 **************

 ** _Pierrot The Clown_**    
~ **Placebo**

 _Leave me dreaming on the bed  
See you right back here tomorrow for the next round  
Keep this scene inside your head  
As the bruises turn to yellow  
The swelling goes down_

 _And if you’re ever around  
In the city or the suburbs of this town  
Be sure to come around  
I’ll be wallowing in sorry  
Wearing a frown  
Like Pierrot the Clown_

 _Saw you crashing round the bay  
Never saw you act so shallow  
Or look so brown  
Remember all the things you’d say  
How your promises rang hollow  
As you threw me to the ground_

 _And if you’re ever around  
In the backstreets of the alleys of this town  
Be sure to come around  
I’ll be wallowing in pity  
And wearing a frown  
Like Pierrot the Clown_

 _When I dream I dream of your lips  
When I dream I dream of your kiss  
When I dream I dream of your fists  
Your fists…your fists_

 _Leave me bleeding on the bed  
See you right back here tomorrow for the next round  
Keep this scene inside your head  
As the bruises turn to yellow  
The swelling goes down_

 _And if you’re ever around  
In the city of the suburbs of this town  
Be sure to come around  
I’ll be walling in sorrow  
And wearing a frown  
Like Pierrot the Clown.  
_   



End file.
